With the development of smart terminals (e.g., smart phones, tablet computers, smart watches, or the like) and wireless network technology, users expect to use the same terminal at different locations to access the Internet. Different locations may be covered by different communication networks; accordingly, end users may need to pay expensive roaming data service charges for data transmission, especially in the case of international roaming. Specifically, the user identity card (e.g., SIM card) is bound to the home location. Additional roaming charges will be incurred if an end user continues to use the SIM card after leaving the home location of the current SIM card.
In order to cut the costs, the end user may need to purchase a SIM card in the roaming area to pay the local charges. The SIM card is also bound to an operator. If the user wants to change the operator, traditionally, the user has to buy a roaming phone card or go to a branch of the carrier operator for relevant services in the roaming area, where the card will still need to be changed, thus making it inconvenient for the user.
Therefore, in order to overcome the defects of the traditional method, now a virtual user identity card (e.g., a VSIM card) is dynamically allocated to the user so that the user can pay local charges in the roaming area. Specifically, a mobile phone supporting dual cards is taken as an example for providing detailed explanations of the method. The mobile phone is provided with a first communication module and a second communication module. It is assumed that the first communication module is loaded with a SIM card that can be a physical card, or a built-in virtual SIM card containing complete data.
The mobile phone user can, based on the roaming area, download a local VSIM card of the roaming area from the Internet through the SIM card of the first communication module and load the local VSIM card to the second communication module, so that the user can pay local data charges through the VSIM card of the second communication module upon arriving at the roaming area. However, as the acquired VSIM card does not usually contain core authentication information, when the user arrives at the roaming area and wants to register with a local communication network through the VSIM card loaded on the second communication module, the user has to acquire authentication information by a data service roaming function of the SIM card of the first communication module to complete the authentication process, thus to finally complete the network registration and pay local data charges of the roaming area.
In the method of dynamic allocation of the VSIM card, the data service transmission capability of the SIM card of the first communication module has to be applied to download resources from the VSIM card and acquire subsequent authentication information, especially, acquisition of the authentication information will involve data roaming. However, the user downloads the VSIM card to cut down data roaming costs, and as a result, the method goes against the user's intention, thus making it inconvenient for the user.
On the other hand, in order to avoid the user enabling the data service roaming function in the roaming area, the VSIM card provider has to provide the user with a VSIM card containing complete data, thus resulting in waste of resources within the number segment of the VSIM card, and causing financial burden to the VSIM card provider (e.g. the monthly charges of the VSIM).